Joe Hockey — meet Michelle Creten

Ms Creten, 46, of Oakden, is a single mother of six trying to make ends meet on just $22,000 a year.

While Mr Hockey is chauffeured around in a Commonwealth car and regularly travels on a private jet, Ms Creten drives hundreds of kilometres across metropolitan Adelaide four days a week as an energy saver representative in order to put food on the table for her four children still living at home.

Ms Creten estimates she spends about 25 hours a week in her car. She says Mr Hockey’s comment is simply wrong and is an attempt to “push poorer people down a little bit further”.

“Low-income people — regardless of very low, middle low, or where I’m at — we do own cars and we need to have cars,” she said.

“If I didn’t have my car I wouldn’t have been able to go to job interviews because it takes me an hour to get into work on the bus and then I wouldn’t get back in time to pick up my sick child from school.”

Ms Creten said having a car meant her family went without other luxuries often taken for granted, including trips to the zoo and the cinema.

“I travel for work because I do home visits. I’ve got the drop off at (Gilles Plains Primary) school every morning, the pick up from school every afternoon … and then a couple of times a week I have another drop off at Marden Senior College for my son,” she said.

“I’m based in Adelaide so I travel from home to Adelaide and then I do home visits, which can be anywhere from down at Hackham, up to Gawler, out to Semaphore and up to Mt Barker.”

UNDER FIRE: Treasurer Joe Hockey is chauffeured around in a Commonwealth car on a $365,000 salary.
Image: News Limited.

Does Joe Hockey fail to understand real Australian families?

Uniting Communities advocacy and communications manager Mark Henley said Mr Hockey failed to understand how the labour market worked in low and modest-income households.

“They generally live in little or outer suburbs, not always close to public transport, and many of the jobs available are in care services and hospitality,” he said.

“These are the big employers in this state. They are casual, part-time and unpredictable in terms of timing and invariably they are finishing or starting a lot of time when public transport is not available.

“A car is essential for work for most people … it’s very frustrating that Joe Hockey basically wants to put an extra charge on low income people who are struggling to make ends meet.”